THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
methods which were apparently sur
vivals from the early ages of the world's
history.
HABITS AND CUSTOMS SURVIVING FROM
EARLY CHAPTERS OF THE
WORLD'S HISTORY
In the houses where we slept, the port
holes which served as windows had nei
ther sashes nor glass. Against some of
the doors were nailed the bones and
shriveled remains of lopped human
hands, the ghastly trophies of battle or
blood-revenge. Meals were eaten on the
floor from a common dish or kettle, out
,of which every man took his portion
with a sharpened pine splinter or a
wooden spoon. Fruit was offered to us
on huge brass or copper trays bearing
Latin inscriptions in old Gothic letters
.or verses from the Koran in Arabic.
Grain was threshed by driving over it a
yoke of oxen attached to a wooden to
boggan, whose lower surface was stud
ded with sharp-edged fragments of
quartz.
Men accused of crimes were tried by
the ordeal or cleared themselves by com
purgation. Homicide was restrained only
by the laws of the vendetta. A murderer
who wished to make peace with his blood
seekers let his hair grow long, put on a
white shroud, went with uncovered head
to the relatives of the man whom he had
killed, presented them with an unsheathed
dagger, holding it by the point, and took
the desperate chance of life or death.
Forgiven murderers became members, by
adoption, of the clans to which their
victims had belonged.
A man who had a quarrel with his
- neighbor wrapped himself in a burial
shroud and went in person to settle it,
carrying in his hand money to pay a
priest for reading prayers over a grave;
and the dead were lamented with keen
ing, borne to the village cemetery on
ladders, and buried with Arabic prayers
in their hand, to be given to the angel
who should awaken them on the morning
'of the resurrection.
In short, the men whose acquaintance
we made and whose customs we ob
served in the aouls of central and south
ern Daghestan lived, acted, and died in
much the same way perhaps that our
own ancestors lived, acted, and died on
the plains of Asia or in the forests of
Europe in the forgotten years of the re
mote past.
ON ONE OF THE GABLES OF THE WORLD'S
ROOF
On the 3 d of October we entered the
high trough between the snowy range
and the main range, spent the night in
the Daghestan village of Bezheeta, at an
elevation of 8,000 or 9,000 feet, and
about the middle of the next forenoon
began the ascent of the gigantic ridge
which forms the backbone of the eastern
Caucasus and which separates Daghestan
from the valley of Georgia.
We started up the mountain in zigzags,
following as nearly as possible the track
of a small but rapid stream which came
rushing down from a rudimentary glacier
,000o feet above. Old, hardened snow
soon made its appearance, the noise of the
torrent ceased, and we entered a gray
canopy of clouds, which hid everything
from sight except the never over which
we rode. For an hour or two we climbed
steadily upward, enveloped constantly in
clouds and hearing nothing but the
crunching of snow under our horses'
feet.
Suddenly a cold, piercing wind began
to blow in our faces. We had reached
the summit, 12,000 feet above the sea,
and the wind came from the other side
of the range. The clouds, however, still
hid everything from sight, and the mist,
wind, and low temperature made it un
comfortable to stay on the summit long.
A VISION OF THE PLAIN
Just before we began our descent,
however, the gray ocean of vapor sud
denly opened beneath us, and there, 12,
ooo feet below, lay the beautiful semi
tropical valley of Georgia, like a huge
colored map framed in clouds. Scores
of glittering streams, like shining silver
threads, lay stretched across the broad
expanse of meadow land which sloped
away from the base of the mountains;
orchards, vineyards, and olive groves di
versified it here and there with patches
of darker green, and far away in the
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